


Malfunction

by Mura



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2005410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mura/pseuds/Mura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Daniel malfunctions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Malfunction

It didn’t happen all that often. Daniel had been programmed with the capability to process hundreds of thousands of different types of inputs, so it usually wasn’t an issue. But of course not every possible circumstance could be accounted for.

When it did happen, it followed the same pattern every time. Someone would say something that was just a little bit beyond his scope of knowledge or experience with human interaction and he would search desperately for the correct response, coming up with nothing. Then came the shaking and the sparking and the humming as his processors went into overdrive trying to come up with a solution. Smoke would fill the air, every human in the vicinity would inevitably leave, and Daniel would stand there wondering if he’d be able to come up with a satisfactory answer before overheating completely – before igniting from the inside and falling to the ground, inoperative forever. He would eventually reach some satisfactory result before it was too late, and that’s when the sickening taste of oil would fill his mouth, the black liquid running down his chin and dripping onto the floor.

The whole experience was terrifying and humiliating and always left him convinced that this time would be the last straw. That he would be labeled as too defective, too much of a fire hazard to be left operating. And then, when no one called for his deactivation, he found himself suspecting that it was still only a matter of time before this happened again and the higher-ups at Strexcorp finally made the logical choice and cut their losses.

Perhaps it was because of this occasional malfunctioning that Daniel worked as hard as he did. He wanted to make himself as indisposable as possible and to know that his existence would ultimately contribute a net good to the company. His dedication had earned him a job as the producer at Night Vale Community Radio where he had, on his very first day working there, malfunctioned upon being questioned about something he had not expected to be questioned about.

Cecil Palmer, the radio host at the station, thought too much, wondered to much, talked too much. He spoke in metaphors that Daniel was incapable of understanding, and seemed to have little respect for the authority of the company. In short, he was the worst possible type of person for Daniel to work with, and Daniel found himself malfunctioning more than he ever had before in his life. But Palmer was considered a key asset to winning over the citizens of Night Vale, and so Daniel had to simply accept his situation and hope that he could reign the man in before it cost the bio-machine his career, or perhaps his existence.

When Daniel heard that Lauren Mallard – the Lauren Mallard – was coming to the station, he was filled with dread. A quick search yielded rather staggering results as to how many humans Lauren had personally sentenced to death or to mandatory rehabilitation (the former generally considered by far the more merciful of the options). It wasn’t that he felt sorry for the victims – what are the lives of strangers worth to a machine? – no, it was the implications these results had about his own fate that terrified him. The fact that Lauren had yet to have a bio-machine deactivated provided no comfort. Rather, it only reinforced Daniel’s suspicions that his defects were unique to him alone. If none of the others had been deactivated by her hand, it’s because they hadn’t needed to be. Daniel was going to be the first. He wasn’t sure if she was going to request the deed be taken care of immediately upon her arrival – punishment for his inability to properly manage Cecil – or whether it would take him malfunctioning for her to recognize the hazard of his presence. But either way, his fate was inevitable.

The idea of running or resisting never occurred to him. His programming left him incapable of even entertaining such thoughts. When the time came, he would not object. He would go silently and willingly to his grave. But he didn’t want to die.

As it turned out, having Daniel deactivated was not Lauren’s first order of business. In fact, with all the errands she was having him run for her, Daniel was more active than he’d ever been in his life. If she needed anything fetched or inspected or purchased or killed, Daniel was always the one she’d give the order to. Admittedly, these were not duties usually associated with those of a radio producer, but Daniel wasn’t resentful. On the contrary – he actually quite liked being constantly utilized. After two months of having nothing but frustration with Cecil, it felt good to be able to do tasks that he could succeed in, however menial. He also appreciated Lauren’s directness – something she seemed to lack when dealing with other humans, but that she seemed to have no problem using with him. Her demands of him were clear, professional, and easy to process, and that was exactly how he liked it. Weeks passed and he found he hadn’t malfunctioned once since her arrival.

-

Daniel was sitting alone in the break room one day when Cecil decided to join him.

“You know, Daniel…” said that radio host, slowly and cordially wrapping his mouth around each individual word, as he looked at him from across the table. “I’ve been thinking. I’ve been thinking that maybe you and I got off on the wrong foot.”

“Affirmative,” replied Daniel, simply.

“Oh, yes, affirmative,” said Cecil with a strange smile. “Affirmative indeed. But I want to fix that. I want to make things right between us. I want to understand you, Daniel. I want to understand what makes you tick.”

“My processor is a Strex K6-3970x.”

“Impressive!” said Cecil, although Daniel honestly doubted that he even knew what a processor was. “Must make looking up at the night sky quite the experience. The vastness of the universe and our tiny, insignificant place in it. Morality. Mortality. The ultimate futility of existence and all that comes with it. Not something that one can easily wrap their mind around.”

“Such things do not interest me.”

“Oh, of course! Of course not! Because you’re not a man of philosophy, are you, Daniel? You’re a man of numbers! You know, I was never very good at math, but I’ll bet your can calculate at at least an pre-post-calculus level!”

Daniel furrowed his brow, legitimately offended by this man’s ignorance. “Child’s play.”

“I’ll bet I could just throw out an equation and you’d figure it out in…well, certainly in less than a minute!”

Daniel clenched his teeth. “Do not mock me, Mr. Palmer.”

“Oh, I would never dream of it!” said Cecil, feigning innocence. “Like I say, I’ve never been good at math, and…well, it just fascinates me when someone can do things with their brain that I can’t.”

“You must be fascinated a great deal.”

“Hey, you wouldn’t mind showing off some of your skills, would you? I could throw out a few equations and we’ll see just how capable you are.”

“Try me.”

“Alright. Let’s see. Ah. 1,000,257 divided byyyyyyyyyy…” the pitch of Cecil’s voice trailed up and down as he looked toward the ceiling, appearing to try to come up with a good denominator.

Daniel was focused on one thing now – and that was showing this man just how quickly and easily he could calculate any given equation. His intent was to casually reply with the correct answer mere nanoseconds after the other number was decided upon. So when Cecil said “zero,” Daniel immediately entered the input and began processing the numbers without thinking about the ramifications.

Less than a second later, Daniel had already added several trillion zeroes together and realized what he had initiated. The smoke and sparks began almost immediately, his body shaking with an intensity he wasn’t used to experiencing this early during a malfunction. Terrified, he looked across the table at Cecil, who was staring straight back at him with the most malicious smile Daniel had ever seen.

“Well, I’d better get back to my studio,” said Cecil, taking on a casual air. “My show’s just about to start. Oh, what am I telling you for? You are my producer after all.”

Daniel looked down and clenched his teeth. How could he have fallen for such a simple and juvenile trick? Out of the corner of his eye he saw a particularly large spark flying away from his neck and dying before it hit the ground.

Cecil stood. “But I can see you’re a bit preoccupied. I’ll just let you work on that. Still. I’m sure you won’t be here…long.” He walked toward the door to the hallway and opened it. “See you in the booth!” he said in a way that implied he would not be seeing him in the booth. And then he left.

The warmth inside Daniel’s head was becoming harder to bear, and he gripped his hair with trembling hands. He had to stop this. He canceled the equation. He canceled it, but the zeroes were still there, still coming, new and endless, still adding to one another. This shouldn’t have been happening. He’d done what he needed to in order to negate the process. But as was always the case when he ran into something he didn’t have an answer to, something inside him needed to find the solution and compelled him to keep searching. Even now, when he knew he couldn’t reach an answer.

He heard voices in the hallway. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he recognized them as Cecil’s and Lauren’s. And he knew it was all over now. Even if he could stop the malfunction it would be too late for him. Lauren would know he was defective and have him dealt with. One way or the other he was going to die. One way or the other, Cecil had murdered him.

Lauren walked quickly into the break room, speaking firmly. “Daniel, I want you to cancel the equation Cecil gave you.”

“I did,” said Daniel helplessly, still gripping his hair. “I did, I did, I did. It won’t stop.”

“Drat,” muttered Lauren. She made her way over to the thermostat, talking as she went. “Daniel, I need you to solve some equations for me. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” whimpered Daniel, heartbroken that Lauren had apparently decided to use her authority to torment him further. The pain and the shaking and the heat were all about to get worse. He was going to descend into smoldering wreckage and all in front of the one person he respected. He’d never felt so frightened or humiliated.

“Okay. What’s 967 times 372?”

“Uh…359,724.”

The ventilation system started blowing in cool air as Lauren made her way to the windows. “243 times 896?”

“217,728.”

Lauren opened the windows one by one, giving Daniel arbitrary multiplication problems all the while. Daniel continued to answer them, and as he did, he noticed something strange. The zeroes were still there, but somehow they were beginning to seem less important. His intense, unyielding need to solve Cecil’s equation was fading, and he found himself focusing more and more on these new equations that did make sense – that he could solve. He could feel the working inside his head starting to slow down, his fear and pain gradually beginning to subside.

Once all the windows were open Lauren, still providing equations, made her way to the small wastebasket near the coffee maker. She carried it over and set it near Daniel’s feet, which confused him, but he decided not to think much of it, still directing as much of his attention as he could towards answering the steady stream of math problems. Lauren walked to the sink, and between the numbers Daniel could hear the sounds of running water and paper towels being torn from their roll.

His next answer tasted bitter. He leaned over the wastebasket just in time, the black oil falling from his mouth onto the papers and coffee filters. He coughed and spit and made all sorts of sounds he wished Lauren wasn’t hearing. She said nothing now, laying off the equations as she allowed Daniel to purge. When the worst of it sounded like it was over, she resumed her questioning. The sound of water had stopped and Lauren’s voice was getting nearer.

“368 times 787?”

“289,161,” answered Daniel, the bitter taste still in his mouth, but the oil having finally stopped coming. He felt Lauren’s hand on his chin and followed its guidance, sitting up in his chair and looking at her. She didn’t look angry.

“973 times 284?”

“276,332.” As he spoke, some of the residual oil made its way out of the side of his mouth. Lauren soaked it up with a paper towel before it could get on his clothes. She continued asking questions as she gently dabbed the black liquid from Daniel’s chin and lips with the paper towels that were still dry, before wiping what remained with the towels she’d dampened. She repeated the process over and over again as the last bits of oil found their way out of his mouth and onto his skin. Daniel was answering the questions a little absent-mindedly now, his attention more on Lauren’s unjudging expression and soft touches than numbers. And the zeroes were all but gone now.

“842 times 564?”

“474,888.”

“Five times two?” asked Lauren with a bit of a smirk.

Daniel laughed a little as he replied, “Ten.”

“657 times 383?”

“251,631.”

“Good,” she said, quietly, drying off the last bit of water from his chin. “Think you’re ready to get back to work?”

“I do,” said Daniel. What he felt for Lauren at that moment wasn’t an emotion he’d known before. It was a warm feeling – not the horrific searing he’d felt in his head earlier, but a gentle heat in his chest.

“Okay,” she whispered before extending her hand and helping him to his feet.

He looked at her for a moment, wondering how she’d been able to handle the situation so quickly and effectively. Had she done this before? Was there a chance that Daniel wasn’t alone? He snapped out of it quickly, realizing he didn’t have time to think about such things at the moment. Cecil was on air now, and Daniel needed to be in the booth. Without another word, he walked to the door and went back to his job.


End file.
